Diary of a Combatant Page 15

  3

  In the morning we climbed up to a small wood that overlooks Benito’s [Mora’s] house, and from there we sent Sinecio and González, one of the new recruits, to look for the men from Havana. The whole troop was addressed and told it was their last chance, and everyone was urged to make a decision. Two of the Maceos left and the troop was left with 28 men. Later the two from Havana arrived, Gilberto [Capote] and Nicolás, accompanied by one from Bayamo, Aristides Guerra,2 the latter with a long arm, the others with revolvers. The men from Havana are ex-military, who had been discharged with the rank of sergeant and who, according to them, are instructors. To me they seem like a pair of shit-eaters who are trying to ingratiate themselves. We decided to continue the voyage by the river below to the house of a guy called Polo.3 His brother, who took us there, wanted to join up but was rejected because he didn’t have a weapon. After walking a stretch we reached a coffee plantation where we slept.

  4

  Polo’s brother-in-law, who didn’t know of our presence, was surprised this morning when he came down from his house. After the appropriate explanations we let him go. When Almeida went to inspect some caves where we could spend the day, one of the sergeants who was giving a class to the young guys fired a shot that almost killed Joel. At first it seemed to me that he might have been a snitch alerting the army, but I don’t think so because it would have taken a great actor to simulate the surprise and consternation on that man’s face. He’s the youngest and is called Nicolás. The shot forced us to move camp immediately.

  We prepared pork fricassee while we rested among the rocks near Polo’s house. Polo was told that two unknown men were looking for him, seeking work. It turned out to be Manolito and Enrique, Fidel’s friend, who had come to join up. He brought some magazines and news from Santiago. Manolito already has connections to bring 50 armed people from Santiago. This afternoon we began the march down along the Zorzal River; it’s a really bad trail and we were caught in a torrential rainstorm that soaked us. We reached Manolo Tamayo’s camp and he showed us a place to sleep on the edge of a very nice little wood. We waited there for Tuto Almeida, who apparently knows this area very well, but he didn’t arrive all day.

  5

  The information system worked perfectly. Tuto Almeida brought Argemiro, who will take us to the house at night; on the other hand, a man called Torres sent his buddy Fidencio to investigate whether there are Guards nearby. He returned in the late afternoon saying there weren’t any. A man came from La Mina [Las Minas] with a fantastic plan to attack Las Minas, where there are 40 soldiers without a leader; he asked for two men to deal with a snitch. We told him to stop screwing around, to send bullets and to kill the snitch with his own men, and to send them here afterwards. According to the man, the things we asked for will arrive tomorrow. When we need food we will send a message asking for it with a 274 in this form. The trip was really bad but we finally made it to the house where we slept until dawn.

  6

  We spent the day sleeping and drying out our clothes. Argemiro went to investigate the trail and came back saying that there were two alternatives: to continue at night to Agualrevés or to continue in the daytime to take La Nevada. We chose the second option, leaving tomorrow early. The man who had promised to bring bullets didn’t come.

  7

  We began our march early climbing a tremendous hill but along a good trail; in the middle of Argemiro’s cleared field I had a sudden weak spell and couldn’t continue at the vanguard’s pace. One of the fat guys from Havana was worse off. We climbed a slope and, after passing a small stand of pine trees and some open woods with a good view of Malverde, we reached a banana plantation where two young women were working. When we called to them they ran away and we had to catch them. They turned out to be Adventists, from the Moya family, very nice young black women. It was agreed that they would make us a little boiled yucca and we would wait in a small wood because it was dangerous to cross La Nevada during the day. You have to cross the main road in a very populated place. The fatso from Havana, whose last name is Capote,5 is already completely wiped out and he was given the opportunity to leave; he readily agreed. His compañero was also offered the same chance to leave and he accepted with similar haste. We also let go a kid from Guantánamo whose brother deserted, and when he was captured, he talked his head off. We gave the kid a peso to leave.

  Argemiro was taking them when he bumped into Polo and Jesús Cid who had come looking for us; Cid brought 40 30.06 bullets and some useless pieces of nylon. He was returning from the spot where he found the deserters with the two big guys, and the little one remained in Argemiro’s care. The news they brought was that there were a lot of Guards in Santa Ana and that there were troops in Turquino; that there had been fighting for two days in the area of Estrada Palma and Raúl was wounded. We decided then to head to Turquino by the elevated area of La Cantimplora.

  One of their brothers of the [Adventist] faith went to confirm that there were Guards in Santa Ana, but the report was false. We agreed with Argemiro that we should retreat to a little wood in El Pinalito and that we would wait for him there until tomorrow. When the Moya girls brought us the food, they advised us that there are a lot of Guards in the areas of El Naranjo and La Cantimplora. We thanked them for the information and decided to continue traveling as planned. Early in the evening we reached the meeting place and slept there.

  8

  Not too early, Argemiro arrived with the guide from the other slope and we began the march. Before leaving Evelio, the muleteer who joined us in Peladero, asked to leave because he felt very sick with a cold and had a skin rash; Almeida denied his request. We walked some distance and then we had to wait until nightfall; in the meantime Argemiro went to a little store in Dos Brazos and arranged a contact in the house of a Spaniard where we could eat. Before going down the slope we ate some welcome watermelons. We reached Dos Brazos at night, and from there we followed the road about two kilometers until we again crossed the river called La Mula and began the final ascent. It was a long and fatiguing climb, completed at 11:30 at night. We started to cook and, in a moment of carelessness, Evelio fled, leaving all his things behind. I began to have a toothache that kept me from sleeping until 4:30 in the morning.

  9

  At 6:00 everyone was up and about. We spent the morning relaxing and then began an arduous climb until we finally reached the slope of Ocujal. Before we got there, Maceo suffered one of his frequent attacks of colic and I had to give him an injection. At the top of the slope there was a little ranch with a vegetable garden filled with food that provided abundant meals for us during the day. We camped in a nearby wood.

  10

  We woke up feeling energetic, but we only went to the end of the woods, which was about a kilometer, where we found some large fields. Argemiro went first to visit a friend of his called Vasalo, who told him that there were no Guards around, but that there were some pro-Batista neighbors whom we should avoid being seen by. We had to wait all day in the woods while Argemiro and Emilio, the other peasant guide, went to explore the terrain. They returned about nightfall with the news that there was a small ranch near water which we could reach easily as it wasn’t far and the trail was good, except for one slope in the woods. Argemiro took leave of us because he was about to return and we gave him a letter to send to David and two shotguns to take to his house.

  At night we set out on our march again, but when we reached Paso Malo we had to stop and spend the night there because it was very difficult to go further. I slept like a baby on some soft earth.

  11

  We woke late and began the march with little enthusiasm. In an hour we arrived at the little ranch where we ate the root vegetables we had picked two days ago. At 10:00 we started marching again slowly and painfully, all day long, through some really bad headlands with a lot of liana vines. In the afternoon we reached a stream that was a tributary of the Naranjo and we camped there; we still had some food from the field we had pass
ed to make soup. Then I made the unpleasant discovery that I was missing a part of the Thompson machine gun that must have been dropped when I helped Alejandro carry the Madsen. Tomorrow I will go and look for it early.

  12

  I searched for the [missing] part, aided by Joel up to the place where I remembered having handled it, without finding it. We quickly returned and found the group right away, as it had practically not moved because the guide went to the house of an uncle to inquire about the troops. He returned at 3:00 p.m. saying that there were [no Guards] in the immediate area, and that they had already gone on to Turquino with dogs.

  We walked a little farther and waited in front of a thicket, but we had to wait for the evening so we could pick the food. As there were several men searching for fruit, I put Sinecio on guard duty; soon Cuervo joined him, apparently to talk to him. In a little while William came with the news that they had both disappeared. I said firmly, “Sinecio wouldn’t leave,” but I was mistaken. The two of them had left, taking the Springfield, a Remington repeater rifle and about 100 bullets between them. Israel and I went to wait for them on the trail until nightfall, but they didn’t show up. With some difficulty we reached the camp on the banks of the stream. There the story of the desertion was doing the rounds: “Cuervo is a bandit and Sinecio is another; both are fleeing from regular justice; Banderas and Israel have a plantation of marijuana and they’ll probably go back there...” With Almeida we resolved that tomorrow we would send Israel and Banderas a message and give them the chance to leave if they want.6

  13

  We got up at 3:30 and undertook the same arduous march, but at dawn we were hit by a heavy thunderstorm and we couldn’t continue until 6:30. By that time we were going around in such circles that we decided to go to the first house we saw. Within 10 minutes we were inside Manuel Díaz’s house, hearing that the [government] troops had been there for 10 days and had only left two days ago. The little rock trenches and little huts they had made were still there. According to the man, there were about 100 of them and they had gone with two dogs toward Agualrevés, skirting around Turquino, leaving one patrol with a lieutenant in the house. Our men were worried and the situation was so clear that we resolved to leave immediately.

  We plunged into the woods again. During one stop we sent Israel and Banderas to look for the deserters and we took their weapons away from them, as we thought we should let them go; but they said they didn’t want to leave and promised to return. They left their backpacks in a cave on the way and departed; we were thus reduced to 24 men. Instructions were sent to Bayamo, Santiago and Yara not to give them anything and to detain them if they asked for money. We kept walking, coming out of the woods at about 4:00. At that time we passed a cornfield and, as we crossed it, Acuña thought he heard voices shouting that we were stealing the food (what they were really shouting was that it was about to rain and dinner was being prepared. Believing this, the vanguard took over the house and Almeida went there. He immediately set about cooking squash and some flour.

  While we waited for the food, Pena7 called us to tell us that there was a plan for a group desertion, led by Vilo and supported by el Mexicano [“the Mexican”],8 William and the guide, who would take them to where the snitch was, kill him, take the money and then dedicate themselves to banditry. Hermes, whom they had tried to encourage [to join them], was the whistle-blower. According to him, William had backed out after the desertion of the other two. We spoke to old man Acuña, who didn’t believe this was [his son] Vilo’s attitude. Then we called William, who said there were two plotters, el Mexicano and Hermes; they were going to desert at La Plata, and then they would go and find the snitch in Las Vegas de Jibacoa. William swore that Vilo wasn’t involved in the plot and that he knew nothing about the guide. We told him to fill in the details and transmit it.

  We ate what was there in the hut, and swearing the occupants (a black couple) to silence we gave them five pesos. We went to sleep in a ravine alongside the house.

  14

  At dawn we began the march again, and in a few hours we were at Fernando Martínez’s house. Enrique, Pedro and the guide went to find the owner while we waited in a nearby thicket. It took him a while to return because the man was working in a nearby cornfield. He immediately offered to find us food and to go to Palma Mocha to Emilio Cabrera’s house to see where the troops were. He planned to go at night but rain prevented this, so he decided to send a nephew tomorrow at dawn. We set up camp in a comfortable little gully and they treated us like kings there. The problem of Hermes and el Mexicano was resolved when Hermes himself told el Mexicano that it seemed as though his plan had been found out and he came to us to clarify the situation by saying that at no time had he thought of deserting, but rather had asked the commander for permission to go and kill two snitches. We let it pass, as though it were true, to avoid more complications. What is evident is that Hermes conducted himself badly.

  15

  We woke up in a bad mood, savoring the hammock for the first time in several days. Later I dedicated myself to pulling teeth, extracting one from the brother of the owner of the house and another from Pedro. Afterwards Pedro felt indisposed but despite this walked a stretch to the little coffee plantation where we stopped to wait for the kid who was coming from Palma Mocha. Half an hour later he arrived saying he had not found Emilio but he had seen his brother-in-law, who had told him that about a week ago our people had gone to El Infierno and that a troop had gone up toward Las Cuevas the same day. According to the kid we couldn’t reach that point in a single day through the woods because it was a long way. We decided to spend the night there and leave before dawn, guided by the same Martínez. At night he brought us a pot of corn flour. Pedro couldn’t sleep all night because of the pain from his tooth.

  16

  We set out early slashing through the scrublands at the base of Turquino. The climb was difficult but we finally made it to near Emilio’s house. The guide, Argelio Campos, went to look for him and brought him back after a while. The first thing he did was to advise us that Lalo Sardiñas was on the other side of the river with 40 men ready to ambush the army. He complained that a clash like that would be prejudicial and that if [Lalo] didn’t leave all the local people would move to the beach. We sent a warning to Lalo to leave and ordered some malanga to be cooked for us. Lalo responded that we were the ones who should leave. We interpreted this as an excess of jealousy on Lalo’s part.

  We ate beside the river but at night we couldn’t climb up to where Lalo was because of the darkness and the difficulty of the trail. At our request, Lalo came down to say that he couldn’t move at that time because he had to watch his group; his attitude was modest and he explained that he was stuck in that position because he was following the commander’s instructions [to wait for government troops led by Ángel Sánchez Mosquera9] but had not seen them yet. Lalo told us that he had to flee because he had killed a man in a house he had entered to search and seize a revolver. It’s not known who the man was who was killed. We slept beside the main road.

  Notebook V

  17

  We got up early and went to the ridge where Lalo was camped. There we greeted old friends and some who had recently joined, like Carlos Mas, who had helped us a lot when we were on the run seven months ago. We climbed to the slope that separates Palma Mocha from La Plata, along a new spur that totally confused me. Finally we reached the camp that they had made near Villa’s house, and we saw fresh tracks. We waited for the rain to stop there and then continued to another little house we knew; from there we sent Enrique and Crescencio’s younger son (whom Lalo had rejected as useless) to the Haitian’s house to get information. In a while Ameijeiras dropped by with el Maestro [“the Teacher,” Luis Barreras] and another member of the rearguard, greeting us warmly. We kept climbing a hill to reach where Fidel was. We were well received and we chatted with him for a long time. I met, although fleetingly, [Raúl] Chibás, [Felipe] Pazos, [Roberto] Agramonte and the new doct
or [Júlio Martínez Páez], who is a surgeon and a first-class guy. Fidel told me of the plans and the situation. He’s working on a document which proposes the immediate resignation of Batista, rejects the military junta and proposes a member of the civic institutions as a temporary [president] for no longer than one year, within which new elections are to be held. It also proposes a minimum program that includes the basis for an agrarian reform. Fidel didn’t tell me this but it seems to me that Pazos and Chibás refined the declaration quite a bit.10 He also told me that poor Universo had been relieved of his highly valued post and was now charged with attending to the old timers. The troop has more than 200 men; there are new promotions, Ramirito to captain, Ciro to lieutenant,11 el Guajiro [Crespo] to the post Universo had, Almeida to second commander and me to captain and head of a [new] column that is to hunt down Sánchez Mosquera in Palma Mocha. I have the small platoon that came with me from El Uvero, Ramiro’s platoon plus that of Lalo, who is second-in-command of the column. After we spoke with el Guajiro, I slept until 1:30.

  18

  I left early with the men, first going to the Haitian’s house where I treated some people; then we continued at a slow pace to the [part of the Sierra] Maestra that separates the Palma Mocha and La Plata rivers. The commander ordered me to set up an ambush on the slope. I sent a message to Lalo to come up and he came at night to the slope where we slept.

  19

  From early in the morning we set up the ambush on the ridge where two small trails meet. At 9:00 a peasant climbed up saying that the troops had been there since last night. We ordered him to investigate again and he returned at 12:00 to tell us that Fermín, the guide who had been detained, had been released and that the troops had left without saying where they were going. I sent word to Fidel and left for the slope with the intention of cutting across the Sierra Maestra; but half way there we encountered some supplies sent by Crescencio and we decided to distribute them. Then a second letter arrived advising me that an enemy troop would have to climb up to La Jeringa via Palma Mocha. We then decided to spend the night right there and climb the Sierra Maestra early. We had already explored the area and nobody had passed by there.